Club Shay Shay - The Game 1

Summary

Club Shay Shay – The Game, Part 1 (December 10, 2025)

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Episode Overview

In this candid and emotionally charged episode, NFL legend Shannon Sharpe interviews West Coast rap icon The Game. They dive deep into The Game’s turbulent upbringing, career breakthroughs, notorious industry feuds, and personal philosophy—with raw honesty, humor, and vulnerability. The conversation peels back the layers on trauma, family, survival, fatherhood, music industry battles, and the complex legacy of gang culture in Los Angeles.

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Main Themes

• Surviving Trauma: The Game’s challenging childhood, cycles of violence, and family trauma.
• Rise to Fame: How street life, resilience, and pivotal industry connections led to his success.
• Gang Culture & Community: The allure, dangers, and consequences of gang life—past and present.
• Beef in Hip-Hop: Inside stories on G-Unit, 50 Cent, Kanye, and the role of loyalty.
• Fatherhood & Personal Growth: Breaking the cycle and building a new legacy.
• Reflections on Legacy: Loss, survival, giving back, and finding meaning.
• Notable Interventions: Surprise anecdotes involving Michael Jackson, Kanye West, and Dr. Dre.

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Detailed Breakdown & Key Moments

The Game on His Life Philosophy and Priorities

• [07:24] On his most important lesson at 46:
  • “Pour into people that pour into you. That is the most important thing.” — The Game
  • He emphasizes the need to cherish and return the love of those truly present in your life.

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Early Childhood Trauma & Family Dynamics

Turmoil at Home

• [08:09 – 16:00] The Game recounts harrowing family stories:
  • Foster care due to his father’s actions ([10:04])
  • Multiple siblings, poverty, and “walls” built from abandonment
  • Extreme parental violence: “My mom shooting at my dad with a shotgun and blowing half the door off.” ([15:51])
  • Family torn apart by abuse and addiction: “Everything changed after that night.” ([13:56])

Navigating the Street and Gang Life

• [12:24] The struggle of choosing between Crip and Blood in a divided environment:
  • “It got to a point where I had to kind of drift out the hood or meet whatever consequences…”
  • His love for Scottie Pippen and starter jackets leads to neighborhood conflicts.

Seeking Belonging

• [18:24 – 22:30] Gangs replace family structure for many LA youth:
  • “You end up going…[doing crimes]…you become a gang within committing these acts.”
  • Community and heredity in gang culture—a cycle “passed from the late 70s all the way till now.”

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Redemption, Death, & Healing

Losing Family to Violence

• [29:29 – 30:30] Brother’s murder and its aftermath:
  • “After that, I just didn’t care if I lived or died… I think that did [put me in the streets].”

Surviving Near-Death

• [36:40 – 40:20] The Game on being shot five times:
  • “I was in a coma for almost a month… My mom didn’t come see me either.”
  • Survives by calling 911 himself: “I called 911 myself, and next thing, I woke up, my aunt was right there.” ([39:16])
  • After, he considers changing his life but returns to selling drugs—shows the pull and challenge of transformation.

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The Break into Music

Grassroots Hustle to Aftermath Records

• [44:34 – 48:10] Freestyles at a hip-hop summit, fakes Jay-Z verses, wins over producers, and meets Dr. Dre:
  • “I spit a Jay-Z verse in this freestyle that no one didn’t know… They flew me to the Bay.”
  • Eventually, through luck and self-promotion, Dr. Dre takes notice: “Dre was like, ‘You Game? Welcome to Aftermath.’” ([48:10])

First Tastes of Success

• [50:08] Realities of rapper money:
  • After signing, “I was probably left with about 4 or 500,000. I did some, you know, real young black shit…I went to Jacob, bought me a watch… Then before you knew it, man, I was like, I didn’t have nothing.”* ([50:08])

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The G-Unit Era and Feuds

How G-Unit Came Together

• [58:52 – 63:56]
  • The Game is added to G-Unit as a strategic move: “Jimmy Iovine…would call us the Black Beatles all the time.” ([59:12])
  • On the chemistry with 50 Cent: “You put two people together and they’re just talented, man…You’re gonna get greatness.” —The Game ([60:26])

Why the G-Unit Breakup?

• [61:13 – 63:24] Conflict over industry beef and loyalty:
  • Refused to beef with Jadakiss, Fat Joe, Nas: “[They] were rapping before me. I used them as guides.”
• [63:29] Business realities:
  • “50 was making more than everybody.”
  • “I always felt like I was a solo artist.”

Shootouts and Industry Violence

• [64:37] “We got into a shootout with his armed security in New York.”

On Bipolarity in Life and Industry

• “I got this early entry bipolar shit going… I think that damn near everybody’s bipolar, depending on [the day].” ([65:30])

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Candid Reflections on Kanye, Kim, and Michael Jackson

Relationships, Regrets, and Public Apologies

• Kanye & Kim
  • Talks openly about past missteps, including comments about Kim Kardashian.
  • “No, Kim, I’m apologetic for the way that I displayed, you know, or discussed our interrelations with the public.” ([78:40])
  • On Kanye’s generosity: “I asked him 20 times. I was like, you sure? He was like, yeah, man, I owe you a lot more than these cars, but it's just…I don't need them.” ([79:07])

Michael Jackson’s Attempt at Peacemaking

• [70:06 – 72:43] Surreal moment when MJ calls to end Game/50 beef:
  • “He said, ‘How We Do’…It’s magical. Magical…We should fix the beef on my album.”
  • The Game, unimpressed, hangs up: “I just was like, I hated 50 so much at that time… So I end up hanging up.”*
  • Shannon Sharpe: “You hung up on Mike.” The Game: “I did.”

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Fatherhood, Giving Back, and Perspective

Lessons from His Father and Legacy

• “Indirectly, his fatherhood was what it was, but it ultimately made me a better person.” ([28:41])
• On raising his own kids with transparency, boundaries, and love.

Reflections on Loss & Community

• On Nipsey Hussle’s murder:
  • “…he was gonna be probably a bigger structural figure for adolescent youth in Los Angeles than I’ll probably ever be. Because my thing was to get out and never go back.” ([87:07])
• Acknowledges the dangers of returning to the old neighborhood after “making it”—jealousy, violence, and tragedy.

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Materialism, Success, and Self-Worth

• [80:54] "Why wouldn't you want to be a billionaire?"
  • The Game: “That’s too much money, man. Anyone above $100 million is just way too much. No one needs that much money.”
• On breaking cycles:
  • Despite having millions, kept living in the hood until violence threatened his own son. Realizes the importance of safety and moving forward.

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Notable Quotes & Moments

| Timestamp | Quote | Speaker | |-----------|------------------------|---------| | 07:24 | “Pour into people that pour into you.” | The Game | | 13:56 | “Family was ripped apart forever…everything changed after that night.” | The Game | | 29:34 | “My brother…ended up getting killed. Terrible blow to my family… I think that did [push me to the streets].” | The Game | | 36:40 | “You were shot five times, spent three days in a coma, I guess with a robbery attempt, correct?” | Shannon Sharpe | | 39:16 | “I called 911 myself, and next thing, I woke up, my aunt was right there…” | The Game | | 44:34 | “I spit a Jay-Z verse in this freestyle that no one didn’t know…They flew me to the Bay.” | The Game | | 59:12 | “Jimmy Iovine…would call us the Black Beatles all the time.” | The Game | | 65:30 | “I got this early entry bipolar shit going…that damn near everybody’s bipolar…” | The Game | | 70:13 | “Mike called me…and he was like, ‘That How We Do…it’s magical. Magical. It’s magical.’” | The Game | | 78:40 | “No, Kim, I’m apologetic for the way that I displayed, you know, or discussed our interrelations with the public.” | The Game | | 87:07 | “My thing was to get out and never go back.” | The Game |

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• [07:24] – Biggest life lesson at 46: “Pour into people that pour into you.”
• [08:09 – 18:24] – Childhood trauma, foster care, and gangs as surrogate family
• [29:29 – 30:30] – Death of brother and deepening trauma
• [36:40 – 40:20] – Story of being shot five times and surviving
• [44:34 – 50:08] – Breaking into music industry, first meeting with Dr. Dre
• [58:52 – 64:19] – G-Unit story, group dynamics, and feuds
• [70:06 – 72:43] – Michael Jackson’s call to end the 50 Cent feud
• [78:40] – Public apology to Kim Kardashian
• [86:09 – 88:01] – Reflection on Nipsey Hussle loss and the challenges of going home

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Conclusion

The conversation is a powerful blend of survival memoir, cautionary tale, and celebration of personal growth. The Game owns his contradictions—regret and bravado, pain and pride—offering rare transparency rarely seen in celebrity interviews. Whether it’s confronting family trauma, industry rivalries, or his own public missteps, The Game’s honesty, paired with Sharpe’s empathetic but probing questions, creates a must-listen episode for anyone interested in hip-hop, resilience, and the real price of success.

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End of Part 1. For the continuation of this interview, follow part two on your podcast platform.

Transcript

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[The Game]

I'll apologize to to Kim today.

[Shannon Sharpe]

Yeah, I appreciate it. You know, Go ahead.

[The Game]

Right there. Oh, right here. Hey, yo, Kim. Shannon want me to tell you?

[Shannon Sharpe]

No, no, that ain't no apology. You can't say. I want you to do that. You say, kim, I was wrong for what I said and I want to apologize. That's how you do it.

[The Game]

All right? No, Kim, I was, I'm apologetic for the way that I displayed, you know, or discussed or interrelations with the public. Okay. How about that? All my life been grinding all my life Sacrifice hustle, paid the price, wanna slice got to roll a dice that's.

[Shannon Sharpe]

Why all my life I've been grinding.

[The Game]

All my life look all my life been grinding all my life Sacrifice hustle.

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Paid the price wanna slice not to.

[The Game]

Roll a dice that's why all my life I been grinding all my life.

[Shannon Sharpe]

Hello. Welcome to another episode of Club Shay Shay. I am your host, Shannon Sharpe. I'm also the proprietor of Club Shay Shay. Stopping by for conversation on the drink today. With a career spanning two decades, he's one of the best rappers on earth. He's credited with bringing west coast back to the mainstream. He's a consistent force in delivering classic albums. A Grammy nominated superstar, a multi platinum songwriter, global chart topping artist, a prolific producer, MC, actor and an entrepreneur, hip hop icon, Compton OG, west coast legend. They call him the coast guard. Here he is the game.

We do you right. We do you right.

[The Game]

In the intro, hey, when you was reading it down, I'm like, who is he talking about? You know, sometimes man, when you're on the inside looking out, it's hard to, you know, we just going through it, we trying to accomplish things, we trying to take care of our family, make a name for ourself. And you just never stop to really, you know, give yourself a pat on the back sometimes. So when you reading, it's just like, I done done something. You know, I done done something because.

[Shannon Sharpe]

You'Re still on the journey. You haven't reached the destination yet. You haven't put the car in park. You hadn't parked the boat at the dock. And so you're still going. And that's what I tell people. You don't. You don't really appreciate what you've done. And then when you go back and when you sit down and pause, you're like, damn, I did that. I did that. I really did some ish. Well, congratulations, bro. 46. 46 summers. 46 falls heading into 46 winter. Man, we gotta celebrate this, bro.

[The Game]

Yeah, man.

[Shannon Sharpe]

This is my cognac, shaped by La Portier.

[The Game]

Okay.

[Shannon Sharpe]

A premium vsop. I want to know what you think. Cheers, bro.

[The Game]

That's smooth, man.

[Shannon Sharpe]

Yeah, you know, we. We do it right. We do it right.

[The Game]

You know what, man? I'm out there.

[Shannon Sharpe]

I don't know how T. I don't know how T and Kanye go.

[The Game]

I'm gonna be able to tell you.

[Shannon Sharpe]

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[The Game]

You know, about 10 years ago, this question would have been a little bit harder to answer. But today I've been telling a lot of people this. Maybe in the last like 30 days, okay? Pour into people that pour into you. That's it. That is the most important thing. We spend so much time trying to please other people, you know what I'm saying? Like impress strangers and all of that. But the people that are right there giving you the love, we don't. We miss it sometimes. So now I make it every waking day, I make it my business to make sure that if my mama called me last night, I'm calling her the first soon as I wake up. I'm not putting that off till after the gym. My friends call me, check on me. I'm calling them and checking on them. And so it's just like that. You gotta pour into people that are pouring into you and spend more time doing that game.

[Shannon Sharpe]

You had a very rough upbringing, had some experiences that I think you believe probably impacted you later in your life. What was your childhood? What was your childhood like?

[The Game]

Sometimes when I think about things that I went through as a child.

It ain't no way that I'm even sitting on this couch with you. I lived a trauma, trauma filled childhood. My parents love my mama. Love my mama to death, you know, I love my mama like you love your mama. You can't. Your mama can't do no wrong, right?

Hated my father for a long time. Loved him and hated him. And it's just funny. Cause he passed in 2018.

[Shannon Sharpe]

Okay.

[The Game]

But the things that he told me. He had a lot of money when we were young. Cause he was in the street selling drugs, doing what he had to do. But then he got out of that, you know, he was in and out of jail with my uncle and then he phased out of that. And he picked up other, you know, other little skill sets and whatnot to bring money in, but it wasn't a lot. And I'm like the middle of like 17 kids, right?

[Shannon Sharpe]

17.

[The Game]

Yeah.

[Shannon Sharpe]

So your dad had. Not your mom and dad, but he had.

[The Game]

Yeah, my mom got four girls and me.

[Shannon Sharpe]

Okay, so you got five, but your dad got a couple of more on the side.

[The Game]

Yeah, both ways.

But yeah, he didn't have a lot of money, man. But he gave me a lot of wisdom. And you know, when you're young, you don't really hear the words of wisdom at all. But as my kids grow and you know, I grow, things that he told me are starting to really like, you know, just do amazing things for me in My life. And so I talked to my dad, I think more after his demise than I did when he was here. Which is a tragedy. But, you know, once people perish, we can't get them back. And so all we have is our memories and God. And so I lift him up and praise him as much as I can, just to myself, you know, how is.

[Shannon Sharpe]

That trauma in the past? Does it play out today?

[The Game]

I think that I just as far as, like, fatherhood, right? Cause I grew up in a foster home because, you know, some things that my father did in the past. Me and my sister were extracted from our home with my mom and put into foster homes in third grade. And she fought for us, you know, every month we had to go to court, we had to go to counseling, talk to social workers and whatnot. And so I felt abandoned. So I built up this wall. I built up a wall so that later on in life, what it does is sometimes I'm closed off. Sometimes it's my way of the highway. Sometimes I don't want to hear what nobody else got to say about nothing. And it's because as an eight year old, I waited for my mom to rescue me from, you know, the grasp of the system, the childcare system. And I didn't understand at that time. She would tell me, baby, I'm just working. I'm gonna get you. I'm gonna get you. And every time I left the courthouse and I didn' in my mom's car, I felt like she abandoned me. So by the time I turned 12, I gave up. I was like, she ain't never gonna get me. So this is my life. And so stop being, you know, stop being a pussy and G up. So then I took to the streets in sixth, seventh grade, started running around and smoking weed and, you know, just running with different gangs and Crip gangs, blood gangs. I couldn't figure that. Yo. One of the hardest things, and you know, this is funny, one of the hardest things for me in my childhood, because I come from a family of Crips, was to figure out I wanted to join. Because also, this is gonna be funny to you, too. I love Scottie Pippen, man. And so the Bulls, you know, Scotty Pippen, what they were doing.

In my childhood was like, everything was the Bulls. Yeah. And I love the Lakers, too, but like, the Bulls, it was like Jordan, right? So I was like, ultimately I started wearing, you remember, the starter jackets?

[Shannon Sharpe]

Yeah, for sure.

[The Game]

Everybody on these quarter zips. But they don't know about the real quarter zips. We had These quarter zip starter jackets, man, I would wear it through the hood every day. And I grew up in a Crip neighborhood and they would be like, jason, you gon.

But it was Kai's that I grew up with, telling me what to do with my clothing that I would, like, throw over trash cans when we was little. So, you know, it got to a point where I had to kind of drift out the hood or, you know, meet whatever the consequences were for disrespecting, you know, that certain hood. So I went across the tracks and got with my brother and then ultimately chose the Bloods. And from there it was just, you know, a life in the streets.

[Shannon Sharpe]

You mentioned that you were placed in foster care because of some unthinkable acts that your father perpetrated against your sister. Did you have any idea this was going on?

[The Game]

I had no idea. Again, man, I was oblivious to it because it happened once. Right. And what happened was, if I got the story right, my sister will correct me when this airs if I'm wrong. But.

One night, my sister did something she never did. She went to get in my parents bed. And so my dad came home high off heroin. And he was a recreational user, meaning he functioned. He wasn't like a drug addict. He just that back in, you know, the early 80s, they were snorting coke and they were doing heroin and they go party, but they were, you know, normal. Yeah, for the most part. So he came home high off heroin and he thought my sister was my mom. So what he did was pull her closer to him and, you know, kind of like fell asleep. The next day my sister went to. Told the teacher that, you know, she was touched inappropriately. And then they came and got us all up.

[Shannon Sharpe]

How old was she at the time? She's older or younger than me.

[The Game]

She might have been 11.

[Shannon Sharpe]

Okay.

[The Game]

Yeah, she older than me. My older sister.

[Shannon Sharpe]

So when that happened, did your father try to explain what had transpired or. They weren't trying to hear that at.

[The Game]

That point he was honest about it. And I give him that. He said he just didn't remember.

[Shannon Sharpe]

Right.

[The Game]

Said he didn't remember. Could have been a lie, could have been honest. But I always felt like he was telling the truth on that point. But still it didn't matter if he was honest or. Or he was, you know, telling a lie about it. I had resentment to him from that day on because we were stripped, you know, from my mother's care. And I was a mom.

[Shannon Sharpe]

Family was ripped apart.

[The Game]

Yeah, ripped apart forever. Before that, we used to have Sunday Dinners. We would go to Disneyland. We'd go to the beach. We would go to the lake. We go fishing. We had a real family, you know, the kind that, you know, the family matters. We had that. And, yeah, everything changed after that night.

[Shannon Sharpe]

Did your mom. You say your dad sold drugs? What did your mom do? Was your mom in the game also?

[The Game]

My mama is.

She was a G. Yeah, she a G. My mama grew up in the Hoovers. 74th of Hoover. It's a hood in the Mid city. Los Angeles, South Central. And she banged Crip. And she also worked at. She banged during the day and at night. She was the manager of Taco Bell, man. She was like, you gotta think. My mom had me. She was 20 years old, so. And I have an older sister, right? That is four years, three and a half. Four years older than me. Okay, so my mom was already.

[Shannon Sharpe]

Was a teenager having kids.

[The Game]

She was 16, man. But she was about her business. So while my dad was selling drugs, my mom worked at the post office. At night, she would be making plates, taking them up and making, you know, $20 a plate back in 1980, whatever, right? Making money there. She had a modeling agency she would be, you know, doing.

[Shannon Sharpe]

Mom was a hustler.

[The Game]

My mom's still a hustler. She got that, man. She just had an event two weeks ago, man. She just. She's still doing it.

[Shannon Sharpe]

But from what I can gather, your mom and dad had kind of like a contentious relationship.

[The Game]

Yeah, they did.

[Shannon Sharpe]

Even though things seem normal. You mentioned how you went to Disney World and you had, you know, Sunday dinners and you did things as a family. Yeah, there was a lot of. There was a lot of contentiousness in that relationship. Do you remember anything about that?

[The Game]

I remember there was a point where neither one of my parents drank or smoked anything. And then from there it just.

Somewhere in the early 80s, cocaine and heroin, I mean, I guess heroin was around, but crack came in heavy. Coke was coming in heavy. And again, man, like in our neighborhood in Compton, man, I've never seen coca leaves or, you know, alcohol distilleries or, you know, we ain't. We're not creating this stuff in the hood, so somebody had to drop it there. So I think whatever it was going on with the government at that time, man, it was to strip the black fathers out of these homes, man. And, you know, up until this current day, we are the most incarcerated. We are the most, you know, race on race, crime. And it's still, you know, still like that today, man. So, yeah, a lot of contentiousness My parents were really violent after, you know, drugs infiltrated our house. I can remember my mom shooting at my dad with a shotgun and blowing half the door off. And another incident in the house or in the car. She pulled up on my dad. Cause he was cheating or something. Pulled up and she tried to. She brought his shotgun, she tried to shoot him out the car door, but she blew the door off instead. And then I can remember one time she ran my dad over, pinned him between our iron gate at the house and our 87 Regal. And yeah, my dad was, he had, he stayed. I don't know what's up with them, man.

[Shannon Sharpe]

At some point in time, I mean, you know, you dislodged a gun at me. I'm probably gonna have to. I'm not gonna really look at that as love, though.

[The Game]

Game.

[Shannon Sharpe]

I don't know how you see it.

[The Game]

I don't know, man. I think that's not the type of love that I display. Yeah. And then my mom said my dad took her to the cemetery where most of our family is born, dug a hole, threw her in it and shot into the hole. So I. I don't think I had a really, really crazy childhood, man. The fact that that was, all of that seemed normal at that time to me says something about the psychology of, you know, the black child growing up in Los Angeles in the early 80s.

[Shannon Sharpe]

You mentioned after this incident with your alleged incident with your father and your sister, foster care came in, removed you, and you like had to go. You said you had to go to therapy and you had to meet with these counselors, and you go into court every single day. And every single day that you went to court and your mom, you didn't get an opportunity to leave with your mom. It put up a wall. You put up a wall and you just said, you know what? Cause if they really wanted me, they get me. They don't love me. And so did you turn to the gang to fill that void that family had left? Because you no longer had that. Because you remember the trip to Disneyland, you remember those Sunday dinners, You remember all the things that you did as a family. Now you don't have a family. You want a family because you know what family entails.

[The Game]

What I think happened with me was you end up going to the park to play ball with your homies, right? You end up going, you know, playing throw up tackle football. Then you end up going to the Target or whatever and you know, stealing or JCPenney's, Macy's, stealing some clothes. And I think that you become a gang in, you know, within committing these, you know, these acts. And then after years and years, I mean, wherever one or two of the homies drift, you kind of follow suit a little bit, you know, and it could be for a lot of reasons. It could be for camaraderie. It could be because, you know, I had a father figure but didn't, so I had to become, you know, my own protector. A lot of different things.

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[Sophie Cunningham]

Sure thing.

[Pets Best Advertiser]

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[IBM AI Advertiser]

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[The Game]

Business.

[IBM AI Advertiser]

Let's create Smile to Business IBM.

[Sophie Cunningham]

This is Sophie Cunningham from Show Me Something. Do you know the symptoms of moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea, or OSA, in adults with obesity? They may be happening to you without you knowing. If anyone has ever said you snored loudly, or if you spend your days fighting off excessive tiredness, irritability and concentration issues, it may be due to osa. OSA is a serious condition where your airway partially or completely collapses during sleep, which may cause breathing interruptions and oxygen deprivation. Learn more at don'tsleep on OSA.com this information is provided by Lilly, a medicine company.

[Pets Best Advertiser]

Protect your pet with insurance from Pets Best Plans start from less than a dollar a day. Visit petsbest.com Pet insurance products offered and administered by Pets Best Insurance Services, LLC are underwritten by American Pet Insurance Company or Independence American Insurance Company for terms and conditions, visit www.petsbest.com. policy products are underwritten by American Pet Insurance Company, Independence American Insurance Company or Ms. Transverse Insurance Company and administered by Pets Best Insurance Services, LLC. $1.00 a day premium based on 2024 average new policyholder data for accident and illness plans. Pets Age 0 to 10 this is.

[Matt Rogers]

Matt Rogers from Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang.

[Bowen Yang]

This is Bowen Yang from Los Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang.

[Matt Rogers]

Hey Bowen, IT'S gift season.

[Bowen Yang]

Ugh. Stressing me out. Why are all the people I love so hard to shop for like me? Exactly, honey.

[Matt Rogers]

I'm easy.

[The Game]

But you're right.

[Matt Rogers]

Holiday gifting is stressful.

[Bowen Yang]

And all the gift guides out there are boring and uninspired.

[Matt Rogers]

Wait, what about the guide we made.

[Bowen Yang]

In partnership with Marshalls where premium gifts mean incredible value?

[Matt Rogers]

It's Giving Gifts. A series of guides filled with premium gifts at great value for everyone on your list.

[Bowen Yang]

Yeah. Cause if I see one more for the dad who likes golf list, I'm out.

[The Game]

Right?

[Matt Rogers]

How about something for the people who actually, actually surprise you with categories?

[Bowen Yang]

Like best gifts for the mom whose idea of a sensible walking shoe is a stiletto. She wants a pair of stilettos.

[Matt Rogers]

Or best gifts for me that were so thoughtful, I really shouldn't have dying.

[Bowen Yang]

To see what those are.

[Matt Rogers]

And you won't believe their prices.

[Bowen Yang]

Just wait till you see what else is in there. It's basically a one stop shop for everyone.

[Matt Rogers]

You know, I started bookmarking half the list for myself.

[Bowen Yang]

Honestly, this is the guy for the 2025 holiday gifting season.

[Matt Rogers]

Check out the guide on marshalls.com it's.

[Bowen Yang]

Giving gifts gift the goods stuff at Marshalls.

[The Game]

Gangs in la. Man. I try to explain the ins and outs to people all the time, but there really is no explanation except for.

Just following the footsteps of people who did it before you or the people you grew up with.

[Shannon Sharpe]

You mentioned that eventually you did end up going back with your mom.

[The Game]

Yeah.

[Shannon Sharpe]

And what happened that you weren't not allowed to stay very long with her?

[The Game]

When I got back home to my mom, I was no longer the eight year old that left. You know, I had tattoos, I was gang banging and I was from a gang that she wasn't in approval of. Yeah.

[Shannon Sharpe]

Cause the opposite side she was.

[The Game]

She never told me I couldn't be a Crip. That's funny. She never like we never had that conversation. But being a blood was something that she was real opposed to. She didn't really like that. And you know, to this day I don't think I ever asked her if I was a Crip, would it be any different?

[Shannon Sharpe]

Right?

[The Game]

But I definitely know she wasn't with the hiding red rags in my backpack, you know, sneaking. But I came back home, I just wasn't the same person. We didn't have the relationship that we had when I was, when I was younger she had grown, right? Cause my sister, she got my sister back before me. So they had rebonded and I think I was just in the streets coming in after.

[Shannon Sharpe]

Were you upset at that? Because you're like, you got her. If you can get her back, why couldn't you get me?

[The Game]

I was removed from that. Remember, I told you a few years before that I had already built a wall and I really didn't feel like I had a family anyway, so I was coming back to my mom's house, but really, just for room and board.

[Shannon Sharpe]

Yep. Okay. You just coming back to the building, There was no family there.

[The Game]

Right, man.

[Shannon Sharpe]

What advice would you give kids today? Because I'm sure you're an activist now. Kids that come up in a very similar situation, it's hard for me to imagine now that there aren't kids that's in this area or Detroit or Chicago or New York or wherever else that's not coming up in a very similar situation. What advice would you give them?

[The Game]

I would say the number one thing I would tell them is there is a strong possibility that if you drift off into the streets that you will end up dead. Point blank, period. So at that point, you have to question, do you want to live or die? Which is a rhetorical question. In Los Angeles, from grandfather to grandmother to child, it's like, do you care if you live and die? And a lot of these guys, because of what they've seen portrayed in the hood their entire lives, and like I said, it's hereditary, man. This is passed on from generation to generation, from the late 70s all the way till now. And me and you, we a little older, so we can kind of remember the late 70s, early 80s and all that. But that was 50 years ago. Like 40, almost 50 years ago. Which is crazy when you say it.

[Shannon Sharpe]

Right.

[The Game]

But I don't think much has changed. If anything, it's a lot worse. So I would just tell anybody that would listen, like, you know, there's a possibility you gonna die.

[Shannon Sharpe]

Is it easier if you don't have something to live for? You don't care about dying Very, very for.

[The Game]

That's. Yeah, that's accurate. Yeah. And at times, even the things that people would necessarily have to live for, they don't think that that's enough to live for. Right, right. Having a grandmother that loves you, having a mom that loves you, having parents or a parent that's going, you know, working for you, putting clothes on your back and, you know, providing a roof over your head. Like, we still, as adolescents, don't see it like that for some reason.

[Shannon Sharpe]

You said, I think, earlier that you were able to reconcile. Reconcile with your mom, but to Your dad that never came. Why wasn't that reconciliation possible?

[The Game]

I think it had a lot to do with me. My sister, long time ago, forgave him for whatever transpired that wicked night that kind of stripped the family. I mean, ripped the family in half. Me personally, man, I held a grudge for her, though. I felt like. I'm not. I'm not tired of being angry at him. I just love the way that my life was before that night.

[Shannon Sharpe]

And you blamed him for ripping the family apart.

[The Game]

I blamed it, man. I'm talking about. We had it, man. The first day the Nintendo dropped. The first day the Nintendo dropped, my pops came in the house with the Nintendo. And when I say the Nintendo, I mean the one with the orange Duck Hunt gun. No, not the red one. Everybody had an orange. Came in with the orange one like we had. I just had. My memories were so fairytale before that night, man, that I was in resentment until almost. Until the day died. But luckily for me, which rarely happens, I got a chance to be more of a son and him more of a father right before he passed. I'm talking about within the last 45 days. And when I woke up, and I woke up one day to like 30, 40 text messages. And the first one I saw was from my older brother, he was just like, dad is dead. And I just. I've never been told that my dad was dead before. So you can imagine what that felt like. It was weird. And I tell people all the time, it doesn't matter what relationship you have with your parents, right? It doesn't matter if it's estranged or whatever. We're all balls of energy, right? All of us, Everybody in this room, me and you, we're balls of energy. When part of your creators, right, one half of your creators dies or perishes or goes to somewhere that is not in this earthly realm. You feel it. Yeah, you feel it. You could never talk to your father in your life. If he died, you would feel a little off that day. And that's just how the universe works. So for me, when he died, man, it hit me hard. For some reason, it hit me hard. Cause like I said, he was there. He was just in and out. He gave me wisdom, but I couldn't appreciate it. When I was that young, I didn't really even give a shit about it. But now I hear his voice ten times a day, like, nah, it's supposed to be like that. Which in tow has helped me be a remarkable father. Cause my kids, it's like at this point in Life. You get to 46, you know, we are on the other half.

[Shannon Sharpe]

Yes.

[The Game]

My children are everything, and it's all about them and about nothing else. And like I told you, you know, we first started, like, I pour into them so much. I'm involved. I want to know what's going on. I want to be transparent. I want to know, you know, the first time my daughter feels like she likes her boys. Cool. Tell me. Let's sit down. Let's talk about it. I want to know what year my sons feel like they're gonna have a kid. So I'll know when I'm gonna be Grandpa Gary one day. Let me know. And I also told him, I said, you know, either one of y' all get somebody pregnant, you know, you financially cut off. Cause now you have to be a man. You gotta figure it out like I did.

[Shannon Sharpe]

Exactly.

[The Game]

And they like, yeah, we think we gonna chill, play these video games. You know what I'm saying? So, yeah, man. I think that indirectly, his fatherhood was what it was, but it ultimately made me a better person.

[Shannon Sharpe]

So you wanted to do. You wanted to be everything as a father that he wasn't.

[The Game]

Exactly.

[Shannon Sharpe]

And this is why you are how you are with your kids, because of how he wasn't with you.

[The Game]

Exactly. And I was his favorite. And I got. Again, I got 17 siblings, so imagine how everyone else feels. Wow.

[Shannon Sharpe]

Your father. Normally, you said your dad didn't do drugs at first, like, recreational. Okay, you go party. Something like that. But there was a tragic incident in which your brother was killed, and you felt that that might have led him down that path.

[The Game]

Yeah. So When I was 13.

My brother, who was 16, he ended up getting killed. Terrible blow to my family. That was. You know, my other brother's gonna be like, man, what's up, man? But that was my brother.

[Shannon Sharpe]

Right?

[The Game]

You know, I loved him to death. He made sure that I had everything that I needed for everything that my father lacked.

He carried right to the doorstep. And we got different moms, you know, so he was there. So that was not my first blow as far as death is concerned. Somebody you care about. Cause I've lost friends. I lost my first friend when I was in kindergarten to a drive by, walking home. But, yeah, my brother died, man. Again, I was hated the world. And I think. And remember when you asked me what sent me to into the streets? I think that did. Cause after that, I just didn't care if I lived or died. Again. I was young. I was 13 years old, and I had no kids. And I felt like, you know, like this was it.

[Shannon Sharpe]

Did your brother bang?

[The Game]

He did, yeah.

[Shannon Sharpe]

So that didn't, that didn't. Because, like, you know now, I mean, you probably knew then. There's a chance that me being in this part of life, doing this in life, there's a good chance that one day this fate could be failed. Me.

[The Game]

Yeah. So again, here's the psychology from us as adolescent gang members in LA or across the globe, right?

Just from me sitting here talking to you, I can tell you straight that I didn't care if I died. I was walking outside to die every day and I didn't care. But my thing was I gotta have the upper hand. So I always had my head on a swivel. I mean, obviously I'm sitting before you. I always played defense when I walked outside, but I woke up and walked outside with my rag in my pocket every day knowing that I was gonna bang. And in concert or in la, period, it's a different gang every block or so. Five blocks, yeah. Every five blocks, the gang changes. So imagine walking two miles to school. How many times you get asked where you from? And how many times you gotta make the decision to lie or stand on it and face whatever is in front of you. Damn.

[Shannon Sharpe]

I mean, you like, bro, hey, hey, bro, I ain't about this, man. I'm just trying to go to school, get me a little education call, that's it, man.

[The Game]

But you know what? When and when I was young, I was fearless as well, right? You know, I was fearless as well, man. I would either tell them where I was from or run. Sometimes I'm too little, they too big. The crazy. I told my sons this story not too long ago. I was maybe 9 or 10 years old, getting banged on by adults. I mean, kids that were like 19, 20, asking a 10 year old like, where you from? You would have to answer that or it would be consequences. So it would either you knew him and you would be like, you know, f you, Calvin and then run, or you would just get beat up as a kid, right? And that is crazy, man. When I think back about, you know, how I came up.

[Shannon Sharpe]

Let me ask you a question, man, Real talk. When did we stop throwing these?

[The Game]

I been fighting all my life, but.

[Shannon Sharpe]

It used to be you took an ass cutting, dude got the best of you, that was the end of it. It wasn't a situation where you got beaten and you went and had to go home and get that fire right.

[The Game]

Again, man, I never seen Internet change that, huh? I've never seen anybody of anybody from the hood, whether it be Hispanic or African American or any other race that is in the hood. I've never seen them put a gun together.

[Shannon Sharpe]

Yeah.

[The Game]

So I'm saying, where are the weapons coming from? You know what I'm saying? I feel like at some point, man, it was, you know, a big, you know, some big crates and they dropped them off and the crate, you know, the wood fell and. And you can have anything you want because we not manufacturing these things, man. Well, for some reason everybody got them, I think in the 80s, and I think it was a ploy by the American government at that time to infiltrate the black neighborhoods. And it's still happening today. And I think we are very, very far from a place of.

Where we can just rectify the situation, to be honest, man. And so. But we can't give up either. Like I said, I'm with my sons, you know, I know you got, you know, family and young cast in your family who you talking to? And like this is, you know, it should be like this, you know, nephew or son or whatever. But yeah, everybody gotta do their part.

[Shannon Sharpe]

Is gang culture celebrated too much? Do we glorify it? Do we glamorize it too much?

[The Game]

Um, I think we do. And I think I'm part of the problem. But my story, my history, my life, my childhood, my upbringing, that's.

[Shannon Sharpe]

But you live that life, though. Yeah, that ain't. I mean, that ain't no. You ain't no studio gangster. You actually walk these streets as that.

[The Game]

Right?

[Shannon Sharpe]

And a lot of people now pretend like they walk the street as that. And they're not, but they're celebrating something and they're glamorizing and it's just like an athlete. You see LeBron James and you see somebody or your favorite rapper talking about this. Well, that's what I want to be. I want to be just like that.

[The Game]

Yeah, it happened the same for me. I think that these days it's just a little. Not even a little, a lot more non authenticated, you know, it's just, it's social media, man. You could be wherever you want to. You could be whatever you want to be, right? Looking into your phone, you know, anything, you could be LeBron James only on your phone if you're not that skilled at basketball. But you go to the park and sit your phone down, record yourself, make.

[Shannon Sharpe]

About five or six jumpers, you might.

[The Game]

Miss a hundred, but you're not going to put the misses on there, Right?

[Shannon Sharpe]

Right.

[The Game]

So then your friends come on there, they double tap. Now you got 100 likes and you. You hitting five, but you really shot 100. Everybody think you Michael Jordan. You know what I'm saying? So it's just like, you could be anybody. You want to be on the Internet, man. Nobody has to be authentically them.

[Shannon Sharpe]

Hey, what's up, y'?

[The Game]

All?

[Shannon Sharpe]

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[The Game]

Yeah.

[Shannon Sharpe]

You were trying to rob somebody or you was getting robbed?

[The Game]

Um, no, no, no. I was getting robbed.

[Shannon Sharpe]

Did you know? I mean, they run down how they get. You say you kept your head on the swivel. So how'd you get run down?

[The Game]

Um, I made a mistake. I was. I was playing Madden. And it was longer than three days, by the way. Man. I was down for almost a month.

[Shannon Sharpe]

You was in a coma for almost a month?

[The Game]

Almost, yeah. Damn. Yeah. My mom didn't come see me either, but she said she wasn't. She was like, you ever.

[Shannon Sharpe]

You know, if something ever happened to you, you know what this life entails? And if it happens to you, I'm not gonna. I'm not coming.

[The Game]

Yeah, I told you. So what happened was I was playing Madden late night. And we had rules in the, you know, in the dope house that after midnight, all sales cease. Cause, you know. You know, bullshit can happen. So I heard a knock on the door. I must have looked at the time, and it was like, maybe like 12:30. And I was like, nobody else was, you know, in the dope spot but me. And so if you're an adult, if you ever sold dope.

When there's a lot of guys or a lot of homies in the dope spot, every knock on the door is the other person's turn until it gets back to you. And that's how, you know, everybody makes, you know, even money. So on this particular night, my brother was with his kid's mom and my other homie Val, who's no longer with us, was somewhere else, gone. And then I think my boy Ant was gone. Everybody was gone.

[Shannon Sharpe]

So you at the house? You at the house?

[The Game]

I woke up that night. Yeah, I cleaned up that night. And so I was like, what is one more knock on the door? I looked through the peephole. It was this little scrawny kid that always come, you know, so.

[Shannon Sharpe]

But you knew him. So that's why you let your guard.

[The Game]

Yeah, I knew him from coming before, but I didn't know him like that. Soon as I opened the door for him, two more dudes came behind him. And then I was in for, you know, a fight for my life.

[Shannon Sharpe]

Just like that.

[The Game]

That. I swear, it felt like it happened in 20 seconds, man. So I ran immediately to the table, which was probably right here, to get my gun off the table. But he got. He kind of got to it before me. So we ended up rolling on the ground for what felt like a lifetime. His homies couldn't shoot me. Cause we were rolling.

[Shannon Sharpe]

Cause he might have been running the risk of shooting him for some reason.

[The Game]

I was kind of getting the gun, you know, like getting the edge on him. So he just fired it. And it went through my chest and through my stomach and through my leg and through my arm.

[Shannon Sharpe]

You think your life was over?

[The Game]

Yep. I thought my life was over. I could remember them leaving after that. I crawled down the hallway to the bathroom that was on the right. I turned on the light. I lifted myself up by my elbows, and I. I pulled my tank top back and blood just splattered on the.

On the mirror. I fell down. I had a next tail chirp So I called 911 myself, and next thing, I woke up, my aunt was right there, and she was like, you know, you've been in here for a minute. Damn. Yeah.

[Shannon Sharpe]

You weren't worried about the cops coming.

[The Game]

To the house, man, when you get shot, man, you ain't worried about nobody coming till the house said, jesus, man. That's it.

[Shannon Sharpe]

Hey, they come, they take all this. But I hear you. You saved my life on this one.

[The Game]

Yeah. And I think whoever was the investigating officers. Cause they came to see me once I woke up from the coma. They didn't bring up the drugs at all, man. So I kind of think that they probably saw that I was young and probably was just, you know, let it go.

[Shannon Sharpe]

When you. You wake up, you like, you've been in there almost 30 days, and now what's going through your head? You're like, I'm done with this ish. I done dodged the bullet. God, thank you so much. I appreciate you.

[The Game]

I'm out. Let me tell you what happened, man. You know, we always had these come to God moments.

[Shannon Sharpe]

If you get me out of this one, I will never do it again.

[The Game]

I went to my grandmother's house. She prayed over me every day in the bed while I was. Cause I had to learn how to. I was shot in my leg. I had to learn how to walk again.

[Shannon Sharpe]

Right.

[The Game]

And all of that. So I stayed at my grandma's house for, like, two months. I said, as soon as I get out this bed, man, I'm going to church, man. Change my life, right? We always want to run to church because, I mean, the church door's open. Yeah, yeah. God is always there.

[Shannon Sharpe]

Yeah.

[The Game]

So I went to church with my grandma, and I was like, man, falling asleep in that thing, man. I was like, yeah, I don't know. You know, God gonna have to catch me outside. So I left there and I.

[IBM AI Advertiser]

So you're telling me that the AI that's meant to make everyone's job easier to manage just adds more to manage? On top of the thousands of apps the IT department already manages? Funny how that works. Any business can add AI. IBM helps you scale and manage AI to change how you do business. Let's create Smile to Business. IBM.

[Sophie Cunningham]

This is Sophie Cunningham from Show Me Something. Do you know the symptoms of moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea, or OSA in adults with obesity? They may be happening to you without you knowing. If anyone has ever said, you snore loudly, or if you spend your days fighting off excessive tiredness, irritability, and concentration issues. It may be due to osa. OSA is a serious condition where your airway partially or completely collapses during sleep, which may cause breathing interruptions and oxygen deprivation. Learn more at don'tsleep on OSA.com this information is provided by Lilly, a medicine company.

[Pets Best Advertiser]

Protect your pet with insurance from Pets Best Plans start from less than a dollar a day. Visit petsbest.com Pet insurance products offered and administered by Pets Best Insurance Services, LLC are underwritten by American Pet Insurance Company or Independence American Insurance Company for terms and conditions, visit www.petsbest.com. policy products are underwritten by American Pet Insurance Company, Independence American Insurance Company or Ms. Transverse Insurance Company and administered by Pets Best Insurance Services, LLC. $1 dash premium based on 2024 average new policyholder data for accident and illness plans. Pets Age 0 to 10 this is.

[Matt Rogers]

Matt Rogers from Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang.

[Bowen Yang]

This is Bowen Yang from Lost Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang.

[Matt Rogers]

Hey Bowen, it's gift season.

[Bowen Yang]

Oh, stressing me out. Why are all the people I love so hard to shop for like me? Exactly, honey.

[Matt Rogers]

I'm easy. But you're right, holiday gifting is stressful.

[Bowen Yang]

And all the gift guides out there are boring and uninspired.

[Matt Rogers]

Wait, what about the guide we made.

[Bowen Yang]

In partnership with Marshalls where premium gifts mean incredible value?

[Matt Rogers]

It's Giving Gifts, A series of guides filled with premium gifts at great value for everyone on your list.

[Bowen Yang]

Yeah, cause if I see one more for the dad who likes golf list, I'm out, right?

[Matt Rogers]

How about something for the people who.

[Bowen Yang]

Actually surprise you with categories like Best Gifts for the mom whose idea of a sensible walking shoe is a stiletto. Psst, she wants a pair of stilettos.

[Matt Rogers]

Or Best Gifts for me that were so thoughtful I really shouldn't have dying.

[Bowen Yang]

To see what those are.

[Matt Rogers]

And you won't. Their prices.

[Bowen Yang]

Just wait till you see what else is in there. It's basically a one stop shop for everyone.

[Matt Rogers]

You know, I started bookmarking half the list for myself.

[Bowen Yang]

Honestly, this is the guy for the 2025 holiday gifting season.

[Matt Rogers]

Check out the guide on marshalls.com it's.

[Bowen Yang]

Giving gifts Gift the good stuff at Marshalls.

[The Game]

Hey audiobook lovers. This week on the podcast I'm sitting down with musician, producer and walking encyclopedia Questlove. We're talking about Mark Ronson's memoir Night how to be a DJ in 90s New York City. All right, like we talked about before, Mark Ronson found sanctuary in the DJ booth. What's a tool or piece of equipment in the studio or on stage that gives you the most control.

[Shannon Sharpe]

So I have two microphones on stage. We have the microphone that you hear as the audience. Then we have a second microphone in which we communicate with each other.

[The Game]

Other.

[Shannon Sharpe]

I feel like that second microphone kind.

[The Game]

Of saved all of our friendships.

[Shannon Sharpe]

No, no band likes each other after.

[The Game]

20 years or 25 years.

[Shannon Sharpe]

Like, the Beatles broke up in seven and a half years. And we're going on 35.

[The Game]

Listen to earsay the Audible and iheart audiobook club on the iheartradio app or wherever you get your podcast.

Back to my grandma's house, I think. Another two weeks passed. I was hanging one of my boys. He was in the streets like me. His older brother is Cam, the rapper Kamal Muhammad. So he follows Minister Farrakhan and he's part of foi. So Minister Farrakhan was coming to the convention center, so was Russell Simmons, Snoop Dogg, for a hip hop summit. I hadn't really rapped that much yet at that point. I was just like a fan of rap. But I was like, man, I'm a go. I'm about to be a Muslim, right? Cause then, you know, they dress up nice.

[Shannon Sharpe]

I'm proud.

[The Game]

Give me the bow tie, man. Change my life. And I'm gonna just be out here with the bean pies like in the Final Call. Like, brother, right? You know, went to see Minister Farrakhan speak, met Minister Tony Muhammad, and he was like, what brings you? And I was like, man, I just got shot not long ago. I wanna change my life. He was like, you know, what are you into? What do you do? I was like, I rap live. I hadn't rapped at all. But he was like, you know, they having a, you know, after this, you know, you go next door, man, and they having a, you know, a hip hop convention.

[Shannon Sharpe]

Okay?

[The Game]

So, man, I go next door after I see Minister Farrakhan. Now, after hearing Minister Farrakhan speak, I was. I was mind blown, right? But it was like I was. Minister Farrakhan's speech made me angry. For some reason, I wanted to go out and just hurt white people. I was like, ah, I don't know. I don't know. Like, I want to be a Muslim, but, like. And I'm not saying that that's what he preaching, right? I'm just saying that's how it made me feel individually. I wanted to go out and get revenge for Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, whoever, right? Everybody that was rolled Minister Berakhan because he powerful, man.

[Rob Gronkowski / Ed Helms]

Yes.

[The Game]

And so he spoke to me and I was like, man, well, that ain't it. I can't just go out and, like, you know, start a war with white people. Cause how I feel, right? So I went over. Russell Simmons was talking about upcoming artists. And I saw Snoop Dogg walking out. And I was like, yo, Snoop, what's up, man? My name game. I'm from Compton. I rap. He was like, that's all right. That's right, nephew. Stay up. And then he dipped. And I was like, damn, he ain't even gonna, you know.

[Shannon Sharpe]

Oh, you wanna spit a few bars for it?

[The Game]

I wanted to try, but he was like, yeah, cuz, do your thing. So he left. But there was a freestyle battle. And so at that time, it wasn't no Internet. Oh, yeah, actually it was Internet. But the only two websites was like Dict and Google. You couldn't surf the web, right? So I was. I knew all, like Jay Z and Biggie Rhymes and Nas by heart. Cause I was like, east coast influenced. I listened to west coast stuff, of course. Cause I'm from here. But I was like intrigued by, like, the word play from, like, you know, Jay and NAS and KRS 1 and all them. So I spit a Jay Z verse in his freestyle that no one didn't know. You know what I'm saying? They didn't know it. And so they was like, yo, you dope. And there was a cat in there named jt, the bigger figure, and his boy, Fat Rat. And they was like, I wanna fly you to the Bay. And I was like, fly me to the Bay. Like, you know, I know in my head that this ain't my rap. This is Jay Z rap, you know what I'm saying? But I'm like, yo, they wanna fly me to the Bay. He's like, in the morning, I'm gonna call you and I'm gonna fly you out to the bay. He called, I went to the airport. I only been on the plane twice at that point. Once when my grandma going to Vegas with my cousin stay at Circus Circus. And you don't know about the old Circus Circus? Nah, it was. Was crazy back in the day for kids, man. It's like home alone for black people. You know what I'm saying? But so, yeah, this is my second time on the plane. Scared of shit. But I land, I get to meet E40. I get to meet some of the outlaws. Tupac, homie. I got to meet rapping Forte. I'm at Too Short. And my engineer that was recording my demo is now the owner of Empire Ghazi. So it's like, I recorded my demo, I brought it back. I was just passing it out. I would go to Rite aid, get some CDs. I bought a CD burner from Fry's, and I would just. Every time I sold some weed, I went, oh, by the way, I forgot to tell you. I went back selling weed.

[Shannon Sharpe]

See, I thought you said God, would you.

[The Game]

Hey, man, you done made a promise.

[Shannon Sharpe]

To God in less than two weeks.

[The Game]

You done. Hey, man, yeah, I was trying to figure it out, man. But. So, yeah, I went back selling weed. And with every person that bought a 20 sack or something like that, I would just give them my CD. Somehow they got to Dr. Dre's sister and my homie, D Mac. And Kdog was like, yo, Dre, want to meet you. And then we end up going to Coming to the Valley. And I had never been to the Valley in my life, ever. And I went to the Valley, and I was like, damn, this the valley. It's only 20 minutes away. So that's how small LA is, right? So I went to the Valley, walked in. Dre was like, you game? I was like, yeah. He was like, welcome to Aftermath. And I was like, what? All I really got is this demo that I recorded and, like, kind of got myself through on the. You know, on the go. And it's one Jay Z verse that I spent at this freestyle. But here I am signing the Aftermath, so. So I went home, I told my mom. I was like, I'm signing Dr. Dre. And she was like, what do you do? And I was like, I rap, you know. And prior.

[Shannon Sharpe]

Had she ever heard you rap before?

[The Game]

Yeah, she kicked me out the house for saying that I wanted to rap when it was just an idea. Kicked me straight out, locked the doors, and I never went back. So I was like, yeah, my honor rap worked out, and she didn't. I don't think she believed me, right? But I was like, I'm gonna make this happen, man. And at that time, my oldest son's mom was pregnant with him. And I was like, I promised her mother that before this kid was born that I would have a million dollars. And I made it happen. Wow. And I thought a million dollars was, you know, not to knock nobody, but a million dollars is not really as much as you think it is when you get to taking care of people and handling business.

[Shannon Sharpe]

What, half of that? Cause once Uncle Sam get his cut, right?

[The Game]

Well, you know, it was a subsidiary company, right? The people that signed me to Aftermath they get a cut, they 30%. The lawyer's gonna take they percent. Management takes they percent. And then so I was probably left with about 4 or 500,000. I did some, you know, real young black shit. I went to Jacob, bought me a watch. Cause, you know, that's what.

[Shannon Sharpe]

Yay, the time zone. The five time zone, right?

[The Game]

Yeah. You know, I bought me a chain. So I was down about 300,000. I bought my girl Lil Ben's truck. I put them out here in the Valley. And then I did some stuff with my mom. And then before you knew it, man, I was like, I didn't have nothing.

[Shannon Sharpe]

Damn.

[The Game]

Yeah.

[Shannon Sharpe]

When you say your mom, you told your mom that you wanted to rap? She said, nah, you can't do that here.

[The Game]

No. She said, get out, get out, get out. Yeah.

[Shannon Sharpe]

Where did you go?

[The Game]

I just went to the streets. I end up meeting this girl. And I never really talked about this before. I met a girl named Rachel on Crenshaw. Cause we used to go to Crenshaw like the movies. We used to go to Crenshaw. Kick it. You meet a girl, you know, roll the window down, you holler at her. You lean over the window. Yeah, yeah, you know, spit your game. And so I met a girl named Rachel. She was in college. We got this thing in our hood we call, you know, the girls from two parent home. Two PZ's.

[Shannon Sharpe]

You right?

[The Game]

So it's like, you know, me and the homies were like, yo, she had two pz? Yeah, she had two pz. Oh, that's how she going to college. She from a two parent home. So I end up getting into her apartment with her and kind of moving in slowly. And that ended up being the apartment that I ended up getting shot in because her parents made her move out once I infiltrated the spot and I went in there and damn near ruined this girl's life, man. But yeah, her name Rachel. I never seen her again after that.

[Shannon Sharpe]

You only know if she's still alive or anything.

[The Game]

Hopefully she's alive. Shannon.

[Shannon Sharpe]

You ought to reach out. You got that kind of. I mean, just have a PI say, look, I know. Hey, I just wanted to say thank you for what you did. Because when I didn't have anywhere to go, you opened up your doors to me and I really wanna appreciate it.

[The Game]

Yeah, she probably saved my life.

[Shannon Sharpe]

Yeah.

[The Game]

I ain't gonna lie, man. She gave me a shot, right?

[Shannon Sharpe]

You like basketball and you tell the story about like, bro, I go hoop. I'm trying to. How you hoop with iron on you.

[The Game]

So that was my thing, man. Like I said, I told you, when I leave the house, I play on defense. I always thought that every time I left the house, that was the day I was gonna die. And for good reason. Cause I have, you know, dead siblings, right. I also have witnessed so many of my friends die.

[Shannon Sharpe]

Right.

[The Game]

You know, I remember I was. My Auntie Betty, who I love dearly. When I died, when my friend got killed on the way home in kindergarten, she. I could. It took her maybe a week to explain to me where what happened, right? I was like, where? I'm not. So my number one question to her was like, so I'm not gonna see him again. And she was just like, no baby, he's with Jesus. And I just couldn't understand that for the life of me. How somebody gets erased off the earth and you just never see them again. Which you know, in the interim really is some.

Tough psychological warfare to put on a five year old man. Yeah, but yeah, you know, speeding back into the future, man, I would always play basketball with my gun on, with a holster. I went and got a holster from Big five. So I made like the real holster so I can like. So it wouldn't fall off when I dunked or anything. But I had to keep it on. Cause I played basketball at some of the worst basketball courts in la.

[Shannon Sharpe]

But then you can't get into the argument. Cause you know, you ain't the only one that got that stick on him.

[The Game]

Yeah, we gonna have to see. But I know I got mine. Hopefully you got your. I ain't never had to really pull it out on a basketball court, but I always had it on me, right?

[Shannon Sharpe]

So the game, how did you come up with the name the Game? Who gave you that name?

[The Game]

I got that from my grandmother when I was younger. Cause remember I told you I had the first. I was the first person on the block with the Nintendo. And it's funny, cause when I got that Nintendo, all my homies wanted to come over, have a sleep. They couldn't wait till Friday, man. So we would have our. Like I had a he man sleeping bag. The homies would have the Nintendo joints. And we, we'd be up all night man, playing track and field, Duck Hunt, Mario Brothers and yeah, so my grandmother from Texas originally, she would just be like, boy that boy, he game for anything game this, game that. And so it was just, it was just baby game. Then I got bigger little game than just game. And so.

When I had to choose a rap name, I went through, I had a notebook with about 10 names, man. And the one that stuck out was Mike Rockwell. And this is gonna be funny to you.

So, yeah, I called myself Mike Rockwell. Cause I thought I rocked Mike.

[Shannon Sharpe]

Well, right?

[The Game]

So I thought that was. I thought.

[Shannon Sharpe]

Cause you do know there's a guy named Rockwell, Barry Gordy's son. I always feel like somebody's watching me.

[The Game]

Yeah.

[Shannon Sharpe]

Oh, his name was Rockwell.

[The Game]

Oh, dang. Yeah. I thought I came up with something that was gonna change the game, but, yeah, my sister was like, that's stupid. That's just stupid. And I was like, what's wrong with Mike Rockwell? She said, it's stupid. She said, why don't you just use your regular name and just put, like, Mr. Or the. And I was like, Mr. Game. Sound like a porn star. And she was like, what about, like, a Dr. Game? I was like, man, it's Dr. Dre, man. So she was just like, use. Duh. And I was like, the game. And then it stuck, man. So, yeah, my sister Sharondi helped me out, but.

[Shannon Sharpe]

So you meet Dr. Dre, you get signed to Aftermath, you get a million dollars. You go through that in little or no time?

[The Game]

No time. My boy BD Helped me out, though. He gave me a Range Rover. He was going to get a Range Rover. Told me if I came with him, he would give me a Range Rover. He was like, man, we can get two. And so we went down there. BD when he was playing for Charlotte.

[Shannon Sharpe]

Okay. Baron Davis.

[The Game]

Yeah. I grew up with Baron Davis, Gilbert Arenas, Tyson Chandler, like these. All my homies went to the NBA except me.

[Shannon Sharpe]

But, yeah, man, you chose a different life.

[The Game]

Yeah, BD Took me. Not took me. We went together to the Range Rover dealership. We left with two Range Rovers, and He gave me 100,000, man.

[Shannon Sharpe]

Damn.

[The Game]

Cause he was proud of me, you know? Cause BD grew up in, you know, in seven, I think, 79 swans, which is a blood neighborhood. And he went to. No, I went to Fremont for a little bit, which is the high school in Baron Davis neighborhood where he grew up. But, of course, he got. He went to Crossroads, right.

[Shannon Sharpe]

Because he was excellent in Santa Monica.

[The Game]

Yeah. Because he was excellent at basketball. But I think it was. I never even asked him why he did it, but I, for real think that it was just because he was proud of me.

[Shannon Sharpe]

Wow. I read that Dr. Dre is a perfectionist in the studio and that if that thing ain't on point, it ain't getting out. Ain't nobody gonna hear it. Nah, it's not gonna leave those walls, is that true?

[The Game]

It's true, man. Dre will have you in the studio for two days saying it the right way. If he don't like the way you said it, he'd be like, nah, you gotta say it. And I'd be like it. And he'd be like, nah, man, it. And I'd be like, I'mma smoke it. And he'd be like, nah, that's not it. And we'll just stay going back and forth, back and forth.

[Shannon Sharpe]

Damn.

[The Game]

But I had patience, you know. Of course, he's a doctor, and, you know, he was supposed to have patience, right? But, yeah, man, we would just go back and forth, back and forth until I got it. And then at the end, and he would love the one that I said in the beginning, he'd go back and pull it and be like, you know what? This one gonna work.

[Shannon Sharpe]

He like, man, we done spent a day. We done spent five hours, 10 hours, a day and a half, and you've took the first one.

[The Game]

Anybody that worked with Dr. Dre will tell you the same thing, man.

[Shannon Sharpe]

What's the number one thing that you learned from Dre?

[The Game]

The number one thing I learned from Dre was patience, I think patience in the game, man. So I've never really rush through anything, which is, you know, at the end of the day, which is probably why I've had longevity in my career while I'm still here, my, you know, fans are still intact, and I'm able to put out projects, you know, and I'm never lazy. I put out full projects of music that sound collectively great, you know, and I got that from Dream Beat.

[Shannon Sharpe]

Dre give you Beats?

[The Game]

Beat selection, man. Yeah, man. Anything that Dre puts his hands on, he got a plethora of producers and whatnot, but there's two people in this game, and I never worked with Quincy Jones before, but I have worked with or three people I have worked with. Pharrell, DJ Quick and Dr. Dre are kind of Swizz Beats and Timbaland, I guess we got a lot of talented guys, but these guys are really, really amazing producers. But Dr. Dre and DJ Quick are mad scientists, man. And I think Quick is a little bit more of a mad scientist than Dre.

[Shannon Sharpe]

Wow.

[The Game]

Yeah.

[Shannon Sharpe]

How did you become a part of Gene Unit?

Because you was your own thing, doing your thing. And then I think 50 was.

Brought to Dre by em.

[The Game]

Yeah.

[Shannon Sharpe]

And then how did you and 50 and that come y' all became G Unit?

[The Game]

Jimmy Iovine didn't know really know what to do with Me, I had a buzz in the streets, but. And he. So ultimately, he felt like if he put me and G Unit, then they would have young buck from the south, yayo banks and 50 from New York, and then me from the West. So we would have America sold up. As far as the members, he would call us the black Beatles all the time. To this day, I see Jimmy Iveen, he say, you fucked up the black Beatles every time, man. I see him. But, yeah, man, that's how I got in there. I think that they just. It was Jimmy's genius idea to just throw me in and make sure that the group was good on all sides.

[Shannon Sharpe]

Would we have. Let me ask you a question. Had you not joined G Unit, would the Game been able to go solo had he not been? Because it seemed like it was a part. You had to become a part of this.

[The Game]

I think that I would sign to Dr. Dre regardless. I think because of who I am as a person and my determination to be great at things, I do, and once I set my mind to something, I'm gonna achieve it. I think I'd have been fine, but I do appreciate my short live G Unit stint, but I think I'd have been great regardless.

[Shannon Sharpe]

How did you and 50 mesh so well in the beginning?

[The Game]

It's one of those things where you put two people together and. And they're just talented, man. It's like. I don't know, man. It's kind of like Elway and you. I mean, you know, like, I remember I watched, and I would just be like, man, these dudes, you know, got chemistry. And it would just. It was like Favre and Sterling. Same thing, man. Like, you get. You put two people together, and we see it all the time. We see, you know, Kobe and Shaq. We see, you know, like, Magic and Kareem. Like, it's just sometimes when you put two very talented, multifaceted people together, you're gonna get greatness, right?

[Shannon Sharpe]

Did you guys ever talk? Because, I mean, some people would think, well, they bonded over both getting shot, both almost losing their lives to violence. Did you guys ever talk about that?

[The Game]

You know what, man? 50 don't really talk about much but money.

Hey, he talk about money, man.

[Shannon Sharpe]

He get it.

[The Game]

If it ain't about money, he ain't gonna.

[Shannon Sharpe]

He ain't about it.

[The Game]

He ain't about it, man. He talk about money, but he. He can definitely tell y' all to get some money, man.

[Shannon Sharpe]

It's going so well. Gene Unit is doing. I mean, y' all come out, boom, boom.

How did something start so well end so bad?

[The Game]

One day I went to, I think, Hot 97, talked to fun Flex or something, and they asked me. They were like, 50 got beef with Jadakiss and Fat Joe and Nas. And I was like, whoa. I ain't signed up to beef with guys that I idolized. I had looked up to the Locks and Kiss. They were rapping before me. I used them as guides to get me to where I was. So, yeah, so I came up on listening to Jadakiss and Fat Joe Digging in the Crates and the Digging in the Crates crew, and then Nas, man, that was like, my top three rappers ever.

[Shannon Sharpe]

And.

[The Game]

And like I said, 50 don't talk about nothing but money. So nobody never told me that the group was beefing with, Beefing, beefing with Nas and Fat Joe and Jadakiss. So I wasn't privy to it. So I was like, yeah, that don't really got nothing to do with me. And to be perfectly honest, me and 50, we were in a group, but I wasn't in it for that long, and we weren't friends. They just threw me in the group. And I appreciated the alley oops, but we want homies. So a lot of people get it misconstrued. They think that, like, we were best friends or something, I betrayed this friendship or something like that. But what I did was stay loyal to, you know, the people that, like, I listen to coming up. Like, I just can't beef with Nas. Cause you beef with him. I don't have a problem with Nas. And I didn't even know you had a problem with Nas till today. So, you know, on the fly, I just said what I said. I was like, I can't. I'm not beefing with Nas and them.

[Shannon Sharpe]

And they got back then, they felt you were being disloyal, right?

[The Game]

Cause 50 felt like he gave me a shot. Which ultimately, you know, being a part of G Unit did help escalate, you know, my career in the early stages. But I would have got there regardless. I feel like, you know. Right.

[Shannon Sharpe]

Were you making good money at U Unit?

[The Game]

Yeah, we was making money, but 50 was making more than everybody.

[Shannon Sharpe]

Well, damn.

[The Game]

Yeah.

[Shannon Sharpe]

What's the issue with 50? So you feel all y' all should have been on level playing field. If it's a million dollars, you get 250. Buck. Get 250. 50 get 250.

[The Game]

Yeah. Nah, man. I think that.

I think it was just one of those things where he made more money, and he should have made more money. I was Just saying, speaking for myself, saying that we was, you know, getting scraps.

[Shannon Sharpe]

What scraps? 150,000 a show. Ain't no scraps game.

[The Game]

Nah, man, it wasn't 150,000.

[Shannon Sharpe]

Okay, 100,000.

[The Game]

Probably about 75. A hundred.

[Shannon Sharpe]

How many shows y' all doing a show a week? Two shows a week?

[The Game]

Yeah, man. And I wasn't there for them all again, so I felt like. I always felt like I was a solo artist, man. And so I was a little honorary to the whole situation. Anyway, I didn't like being. I didn't want to be in New Edition, you know what I'm saying?

[Shannon Sharpe]

Oh, so you Bobby Brown. You broke off, man.

[The Game]

I'm Johnny Gill.

[Shannon Sharpe]

Bobby broke off. Cause he kicked him out the group. He ain't want to leave.

[The Game]

That's what I'm. Well, me, it was different, man. I always felt like I was a solo artist. I felt like I was, you know, part of a group.

[Shannon Sharpe]

Damn. Did the beef get so bad that you. Did you and 50 get into a shootout?

[The Game]

50 wasn't there, but we got into a shootout with, like, his armed security in New York. And they were, like, coming out the back door. I think 50 was getting in the car or something. And then the security came around the front.

[Shannon Sharpe]

And then, you know, what happened. Happened.

[The Game]

Happened a little. Yeah, we had a little back and forth and firearms. How you going?

[Shannon Sharpe]

Hold on. That's your.

[The Game]

Look, I understand y' all weren't 24 years old.

[Shannon Sharpe]

No game. You used that when you was 14. You can't use that now. 24. Now you grown. Grown ass, man. You got a kid and everything.

[The Game]

Yeah, I was in it, man. But like I was telling you before, it takes you a lot of time to undo things that are second nature, man. Like, you know, being. Just being from the streets, it take a lot of time.

[Shannon Sharpe]

But y' all was doing a press conference.

[The Game]

Yeah, they paid me to do that.

[Shannon Sharpe]

I know.

[The Game]

Yeah.

[Shannon Sharpe]

How you go. How you get paid? And then you go. And then you start the bucket.

[The Game]

Money didn't change how I felt when I landed back in California, man. So I know, man. I got this little. I got this early. This early entry bipolar shit going sometimes, man. But I think I tell people all the time, I think that in some form of nature that we're all kind of bipolar, right? Because sometimes we feel one way and then we feel another way, right? And so I think that damn near everybody's bipolar, depending on.

[Shannon Sharpe]

Cause you don't feel the same all the time.

[The Game]

No. And so it is what it is. And so that's what, you know, I did a lot with explaining, you know, my friendship with ye. I'm like, you know, he have his days, but we all do, right? And what we gotta stop doing as people is judging people when you know.

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[Sophie Cunningham]

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[Matt Rogers]

Matt Rogers from Los Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang.

[Bowen Yang]

This is Bowen Yang from Los Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang.

[Matt Rogers]

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[Bowen Yang]

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[Matt Rogers]

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[Bowen Yang]

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[Matt Rogers]

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[Rob Gronkowski / Ed Helms]

Hey everyone. Ed Helms here.

[The Game]

And Hi, I'm Kal Pe and we're the hosts of Irsay, the Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club.

[Rob Gronkowski / Ed Helms]

This week on the podcast, I am sitting down with Jenny Garth, host of the iHeart podcast. I choose me to discuss the new Audible adaptation of the timeless Jane Austen classic Pride and Prejudice. This is not a trick question. There's no wrong answer. What role would I play?

[The Game]

You know what?

[Bowen Yang]

I can see you as Mr. Darcy.

[Pets Best Advertiser]

You got a little Colin Firth.

[Rob Gronkowski / Ed Helms]

Okay, that's really sweet. I appreciate that, but are you sure I'm not the dad? I'm not Mr. Bennett here, listen to earsay the Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club on the iHeartradio app or wherever you get your podcast.

[The Game]

Damn. Well, when you look in the mirror, you do not see perfection. But we all got something to say about somebody. Like we don't get.

[Shannon Sharpe]

We don't have our own separate issues.

[The Game]

Yeah, exactly.

[Shannon Sharpe]

Is it true that Michael Jackson tried to end the beef with you in the 50s?

[The Game]

Yeah, man, that was a weird story. That don't even sound like it's true, man.

[Shannon Sharpe]

So how does Mike call you?

[The Game]

Mike called me and Jimmy Henchman, who was my manager at the time, freed Jimmy too, man, since we freeing Puff, my friend.

But yeah, he called me in my room. I think we was in.

Vancouver. He was in Canada. He said, man, Michael Jackson on the phone. He said it so nonchalantly. I was like, huh? What?

[Shannon Sharpe]

Yeah, Michael Jackson.

[The Game]

He said, michael Jackson on the phone. Pick up your phone. Pick up. The phone rang and they put Mike through. And I picked up the phone. It wasn't Mike. It was some British dude. And he was like, yeah, Michael, it be. He'll be here 20, 20, 25 minutes. And I was thinking to myself, why you just ain't calling 25 minutes?

[Shannon Sharpe]

Y' all expect me to stay on the phone for 25 minutes?

[The Game]

So I pushed speakerphone and I left it on. And I went, you know anybody that know me knows that I play video games all day. So I'm in the hotel playing video games and I left it. And it's got like, you know, the Michael wait for Michael Jackson music. It wasn't like beat it or nothing. It's just like regular elevator music. But yeah, man. He came in and he was like, hey. And I was like, that ain't hey. I know. You know what I'm saying?

[Shannon Sharpe]

That heavy ass boy.

[The Game]

Yeah, he didn't have that. Hey, it's Michael. He didn't sound like that.

[Shannon Sharpe]

He sounded like a regular dude, right?

[The Game]

But you could tell it was Michael Jackson, right? So I was like, hey, what's up? And he was like. He was like, you know what? I want to tell you? And I was like, what? And he was like, that. How we do that? How we do. It's magical. Magical. It's magical. And I was like, yeah, it's a really good song. He was like, no, it's magical. He was like, I was riding in the car the other day and I told my driver, put on that 15 game song. That how we do it. So magical. And he said, it's magical about 30 times. And I was like, okay, it's magical. But then he said. He said. And then, you know what you guys did? You followed it up. You came with that. How we do. And now it's a whole magic show. You guys are so magical together. He was like, I don't understand why you guys are at odds or beefing. He was like, I got an idea. We should fix the beef on my album. And that's when he lost me. And I was like, everything after that.

[Shannon Sharpe]

Was like, why we gonna put it on your album? Why not put it on my.

[The Game]

I don't know. It's Michael Jackson number one. But I was just like, you didn't.

[Shannon Sharpe]

Think he was being truthful? You did?

[The Game]

No, I just was like, I hated 50 so much at that time. I just was like, Mike threw me off with that. And I was just like, yeah, he lost me in the conversation. So I end up hanging up.

[Shannon Sharpe]

You hung up on Mike.

[The Game]

I did.

[Shannon Sharpe]

Come on, game. You can hang up on Mike. That's the greatest artist ever.

[The Game]

Yeah, I know, man. Fuck it again, man. 24.

[Shannon Sharpe]

You get into a beef with Ja?

[The Game]

Yeah, I took that one on with 50 early on because I knew about that one.

[Shannon Sharpe]

Okay.

[The Game]

You know what I'm saying? Right? And I felt odd about that because I was cool with Irv Gotti, but I was on Aftermath and when Get Rich or die trying dropped 50 was going straight at ja. I hadn't had an album out yet, so I kinda like had to piggybacked it. I piggybacked off that one. And I didn't have. But again, I didn't have no business in that beef. I wasn't even in G Unit yet. I just went in. But I thought, like, you know, aftermath, like, I gotta show up. And so I jumped off the. With that one.

[Shannon Sharpe]

You mentioned Kanye. You and Kanye said Kanye was friends. And he goes through some things, like bipolar. I mean, one moment he's extremely. There's no denying his talent. We're not here to defame the man. His talent is second to none. His rap album, he produce, he does all that. But don't you think sometime game, he goes overboard again.

[The Game]

It's one of those things where I'm gonna find myself back in, you know, back in that realm of. Of non judgment, you know. And my grandmother, God rest her soul, told me a long time ago, like, you know, you can't be judged by man. You can only be judged by God. So it's like sometimes I go crazy and so I can't be like, damn, yeah, I think you going a little crazy, right? Like, sometimes I do. And so all I can do is be some shit, though. In my head I'd be like, God damn it.

[Shannon Sharpe]

Damn ninja.

[The Game]

You don't call me this week. Cause I'm gonna have to do it with you.

[Shannon Sharpe]

Right?

[The Game]

You know what I'm saying?

[Shannon Sharpe]

Right?

[The Game]

But yeah, man, I'm just in full support mode of my brother. Me and Ye been down before Roc, a fella before, after math, before all that. We would.

See each other around la. We were both trying to get on and just always exchange words and freestyles and all that. So that been my brother for a long time, man. And I actually.

Love him like a brother. That's my guy.

[Shannon Sharpe]

But you guys had some differences before.

[The Game]

Yeah. So did you and Sterling.

[Shannon Sharpe]

Nah, you know what? I ain't gonna lie, Gabe. I don't think we've ever. I mean, you know, we fought like brothers, like. Cause he trying to, you know, he tried to get the best of me. I can't let him get the best of me. But nah, because our relationship was totally different. Even though he's my brother, he's three years older. He was always more like a father figure. And I treated him as such. Same thing. And so I would like somebody that I did that wasn't my brother. I would curse Dale. I never cursed My brother, I never cursed my sister out because it's like a father son relationship. It's like a mother son relationship. So I have too much respect to get into it now. My homeboy. Yeah, I've cut some of them out.

[The Game]

Yeah. So that's how it is. Except that ye with ye, man, he not. He's just not my typical homeboy, man. And again, man, he go through, you know, his episodes. And so as a friend, as a brother, as somebody that actually cares and loves him.

[Shannon Sharpe]

Right.

[The Game]

Should I just leave him by the wayside? Nah, man, I should call and, like, talk to him. And a lot of people, they see what's on the surface. I talk to ye behind the scenes, man. And a lot of these situations, or sometimes where people might feel like he's diving off the deep end. I mean, diving in the deep end. Like, I call and be like, yo, is this. You know, is this what you. What we really doing right now?

[Shannon Sharpe]

Right?

[The Game]

And then he'll say whatever he say, but then he'll call me back days later and be like, you know what? I feel like this. But again, that's that bipolar disorder that we may all possess, you know, certain. Certain, you know, amounts of.

[Shannon Sharpe]

I'm just trying to figure out how this man supposed to feel. You supposed to be his boy, y' all cool. And then you say he slept with an old lady.

[The Game]

You know what, man? I.

[Shannon Sharpe]

Let me guess. You 24 again, huh?

[The Game]

I was 24.

Nah. But you know what? I met Kim before ye.

[Shannon Sharpe]

Even though you met her before Kanye? Even if that. And I'm not saying it's true or untrue, but let's just say for the sake of argument, this is true. Why would you bring that up and say it publicly.

[The Game]

Man? Sometimes, I guess.

[Shannon Sharpe]

24?

[The Game]

Damn. No. Nah. I think I was probably 30 then. But you know what, man? Sometimes, man, you wake up and choose a little violence. Yeah.

[Shannon Sharpe]

Yeah, for sure.

[The Game]

And if I was sitting here and I told you, or I tried to make up, you know, an excuse for my behavior at times, there just is no excuse. It's just the wrong thing to do on the right day, you know, Like, I don't stand on none of that. I shouldn't have done, but I did it. And you know what? Ye, who, as honest as he is, he called me. He was like, you know, I love you, but can we not ever talk about my wife again? And they were married at this time.

[Shannon Sharpe]

Yeah.

[The Game]

And I said, you know what?

Even though I'm bigger and stronger.

[Shannon Sharpe]

You got that right.

[The Game]

So I Gave it to him. I was like, man, I'm not gonna do that no more. And I haven't.

[Shannon Sharpe]

Like, did you call her and apologize?

[The Game]

Nah, I don't think you gotta apologize to them.

[Shannon Sharpe]

Yeah, you do, man. You put that woman business out there like that Game. Damn.

[The Game]

I mean, her business was out there.

[Shannon Sharpe]

But that ain't got nothing to do with you. Let somebody else do that. I'm talking about you. I'm talking about game. I ain't talking to them. If I get them in the cross from me, I'm gonna ask them about that, too.

[The Game]

Yeah, man, you know what it is with Kris? I got a lot of love for Kris Jenner, man, and Khloe and Kim and Kourtney, man, still to this day. And, you know, we. We. We came up together, too. We were. When we was going around, you know, party in la, in the beginning, the early stages of my career, it was Paris, Kim, Khloe, Courtney, we was all chilling. But, yeah, man, it just, you know, sometimes it is what it is. But I. I'll apologize to. To Kim today.

[Shannon Sharpe]

Yeah, I appreciate that.

[The Game]

You know.

[Shannon Sharpe]

Go ahead.

[The Game]

Right there. Oh, right here. Hey, yo, Kim. Shannon want me to tell you.

[Shannon Sharpe]

No, no, that ain't no apology. You can't say. I want you to do that. You say, kim, I was wrong for what I said, and I wanna apologize. That's how you do it.

[The Game]

All right? No, Kim, I'm apologetic for the way that I displayed, you know, or discussed our interrelations with the public. Okay, how about that?

[Shannon Sharpe]

You mentioned that Kanye gave you. Did Kanye give you two Maybachs?

[The Game]

Yeah, man.

[Shannon Sharpe]

See, that was what Kim was talking about. She was talking about that thing on the special that they like, okay, where did the Ferraris go? Kanye, where did the Maybachs go? Where did they go? And you. Why would you take that?

[The Game]

I didn't take him, man. I told him not to send him. And I asked him. I was like, man, I asked him 20 times. I was like, you sure? He was like, yeah, man, I owe you a lot more than these cars, but it's just. I don't need them. I'm gonna just get some more. And then I got him. And I was like, damn. It's like a little small dented one. So he probably saw that one was dented and just wanted some new ones. I don't know. But yeah, he gave them to me, man, and he said it was just one of those things.

[Shannon Sharpe]

And you accepted him?

[The Game]

I tried not to accept him, man.

[Shannon Sharpe]

You ain't try very hard.

[The Game]

I even tried to send him back.

[Shannon Sharpe]

And he said, no, I give you some used shoes. You gonna say, nah, bro, I'm good.

[The Game]

Yeah, they wasn't really used. They was still brand new, man.

[Shannon Sharpe]

I mean. Cause she felt that people knew he would have these episodes and would take advantage of his kindness. Is that like. She would ask him, like, kanye, where are the cars? And it's like, no, I gave him the such and such. I didn't know you was the such and such.

[The Game]

Yeah, I mean, not. I mean, she probably talking about, you know, his history of, like, giving away.

[Shannon Sharpe]

Yeah. Yes, yes.

[The Game]

But we don't frown upon, you know, Jeff Bezos when he gives away things. Or, you know, people that have a lot of money, man, sometimes they're charitable. And I'm not saying I'm a charity case, but I'm saying people that have amassed a certain fortune may not be as materialistic as the normal person. So it's like, they see, you know, cars every day. So it's probably like, nothing. Let me just get east of the game. He probably, you know.

[Shannon Sharpe]

Did you keep them? You still got them?

[The Game]

They over. They at the house. I don't drive them as much as I would like to. Cause I like to bring them all together. But I'm only one person.

[Shannon Sharpe]

So how you gonna let your old lady drive one?

[The Game]

Hey, man, you. And she does.

[Shannon Sharpe]

I read when you said you didn't wanna be a billionaire. Why wouldn't you wanna be a billionaire?

[The Game]

That's too much money, man.

[Shannon Sharpe]

No, you can help some people.

[The Game]

So if I was a billionaire, then I wouldn't be a billionaire. Cause then I would be. Then gave it all away. It's too much.

[Shannon Sharpe]

You ain't got to give it all away. But you can. I mean, there are some causes that I'm sure you would like to help.

[The Game]

Let me tell you, man, anything above 100,000 is 100,000. I mean, 100 million.

[Shannon Sharpe]

Oh, okay.

[The Game]

I was gonna say anything. 100,000. That's gone.

[Shannon Sharpe]

You in poverty, young man.

[The Game]

I don't know where you going with that, but anything above 100 million is just way too much, man. No one needs that much money.

[Shannon Sharpe]

I don't know about that game, but I sure like to find out if that's too much.

[The Game]

Shannon, you rich, man.

[Shannon Sharpe]

I mean, I'm healthy. I got my life, I got my kids. I've got people that love me. Yeah, I'm okay. But a billion? I just think about all the stuff that I could do, like help my university, Savannah State. There are a lot of causes That I would really like to get behind it and to really help.

[The Game]

Right, which would make you not a billionaire anymore.

[Shannon Sharpe]

That's okay.

[The Game]

That's what I'm saying.

[Shannon Sharpe]

But see, if I had a billion. So if I had a billion and I gave like 500 million away, I'd still be okay?

[The Game]

Yeah, that's still too much money. You gonna end up giving more away and you gonna get back to probably where you are now.

[Shannon Sharpe]

Nah, nah, nah, nah. They gonna get that much away.

[The Game]

Yeah, me, man, I'm not that materialistic, man. I don't put any love value into. I mean like any love into material things. Yeah, I got nice things. But anybody that knows me will tell you, if my car get broken into or somebody steals something from me, man, it's like, I don't care.

[Shannon Sharpe]

What if you caught them breaking into your car?

[The Game]

Now that's a different issue. Don't give me.

[Shannon Sharpe]

Well, you don't. It's a material thing.

[The Game]

Just.

[Shannon Sharpe]

Hey, go ahead. Hey, go ahead, help yourself through the radio.

[The Game]

At that point, man, you are challenging my manhood. And you're also in violation of my home or my private space. And so I gotta get with your ass. Point blank.

[Shannon Sharpe]

I read that when you first started, even though you had all this money, you still lived in the hood.

[The Game]

Yeah, man, I was 24. Oh, it just.

[Shannon Sharpe]

24 was really effed up year for you, man. You did a lot of crazy.

[The Game]

Ish. It was. Cause I had money, man. I had a lot of money. I remember one point, at one point in time, man, I had 4 million in the safe right in the hood. And the reason I did that is because every morning I wanted to see it, right? I wanted to open the safe and see and make sure that I was still rich. Cause I couldn't believe it. And so I never put it in the bank. Until one day my mom was like, boy, you about to. She's like, boy, you about the stupidest motherfucker I ever met in my life. Number one, you have number one record on the billboard and you still living on the block. And number two, you got all that cash over there that can be taken from you any day. Yeah, yeah. So she made me put it in the bank.

[Shannon Sharpe]

Yeah, that had to be a big ass safe. Cause that's a lot of cash.

[The Game]

Then I lost 36% of it. How to Uncle Sam, man.

[Shannon Sharpe]

Oh, bro, come on, man.

[The Game]

Soon as you put your money in the bank, it's gonna.

[Shannon Sharpe]

But first of all, you gonna have to pay taxes on it when you got it anyway.

[The Game]

Not in the hood, you ain't gonna pay nothing.

[Shannon Sharpe]

Well, you don't.

[The Game]

Long as I. Long as I put that combination in, open that door. And every time I did, it say, ha.

[Shannon Sharpe]

But living where you were living and driving nice cars, you know, that brings on resentment. That brings on jealousy.

[The Game]

Yeah.

[Shannon Sharpe]

And you have to be careful because people like, oh, man, this ninja just trying to show out in front of us. And then you know what happened? You know what happens. You know, jealousy brings on resentment. Resentment brings on. People want to do things to you. Yeah.

[The Game]

We had several shootouts during the process where the documentary was out. We had a lot of shootouts, but it was normal to me. I was already. I remember one specific time, the one that changed. There was two incidents. I went to the documentary album release party with the whole front window shot out my Range Rover. I didn't have a window. So I was on the 110 freeway with the wind just coming through. The car pulled up, parked. Cause I was like, I can't not go. You know? But we had just had a shootout, and one of the bullet holes went through my son's car seat. And that was the turning point. That's the day I was like, yeah, I can't. I can't.

[Shannon Sharpe]

I'm out.

[The Game]

Can't do it over here no more.

[Shannon Sharpe]

You didn't think that was I.

[The Game]

Until I saw the bullet hole in my son's car seat. Then I knew it was. I was tripping.

[Shannon Sharpe]

You got up. So after that, you like, I'm out.

[The Game]

I left everything. I got this problem where when I move, I leave everything that I had in the previous house. I just leave it. I've done that about five times in my career.

[Shannon Sharpe]

But you brought. But you purchased some homes on the block.

[The Game]

All of them, yeah. And I had. But see, that's another thing.

[Shannon Sharpe]

Why.

[The Game]

Why it was hard to really take advantage of us in the hood. Cause we lived on a cul de sac, Right. So if you came down there, you was trapped. There was no other. There was no outlet.

[Shannon Sharpe]

Yeah, you got it.

[The Game]

And so it was 1, 2, 3, 6 houses on the block. We had them all. All the homies lived in all the houses. And before you even made a right on the block, somebody would stop you at gunpoint on the corner, roll your window down, and ask you who you're here to see. Now, had I did that in this day and time, I'd be up in that thing fighting a rico.

[Shannon Sharpe]

Yeah, for sure.

[The Game]

Yeah. But again, something about when I was 24, man, it might be Kobe. You Know it's my lucky number.

[Shannon Sharpe]

When you look at, like, what happened to Nipsey. Yeah. Nipsey ended up getting gunned down in his own hood, which is tragic because he tried to do so much to help the community in which he came.

[The Game]

Right.

[Shannon Sharpe]

And it was someone from that very community that took his life.

[The Game]

Yeah.

[Shannon Sharpe]

When you look back, you think, like, damn, that really, really, really could have been me.

[The Game]

Yeah.

The difference between. The difference between that situation and again, I wasn't there. Nip is one of those. One of those great humans, man, that.

He was going to do a lot more. A lot more for a Of lot. For a lot of people. And he was gonna be probably bigger.

A bigger.

Structural figure for adolescent youth in Los Angeles than I'll probably ever be. Because my thing was.

To get out and never go back.

[Shannon Sharpe]

Right.

[The Game]

You know, and that's how I felt. I felt like Compton took so much from me, L.A. took so much from me. Why do I wanna go play reindeer games on the block with the home when I'm already. I've already made it out? So I limit my presence in the hood. But when I do go, I'm going 30 and 40 deep. And I'm not saying these days, you know, these. I mean, if I do go, it's still the same. But, yeah, man, you gotta roll like.

[Shannon Sharpe]

That in your own hood.

[The Game]

I mean, or you can roll up to Jesus and tell him, why you here? That's just how it is, man. That's how it is.

[Shannon Sharpe]

But then. Then they get mad and somebody, well, game don't come back because y' all don't appreciate me. Why come back to this? I left this. And I think, you know, y' all should appreciate and be happy. Like, man, he was the ones that made it out. You see, guys, you can make it out, right?

[The Game]

Why.

[Shannon Sharpe]

Why are we, we, us like that?

[The Game]

I think.

I think it's the way you come back, you know? And Nip did it. He did it the right way. I think that it was just one of those things, that it was one of those coincidental, tragic times where the devil meets a higher power and then they intersect. And the outcome was him meeting the untimely demise. I think about that day when I got that call a lot. I also think about times where. Where situations I put myself in could have rendered me helpless. And for sure, like, I'm not gonna sit here and lie to you. There's no way I should be alive today after everything that I've been through. I've had brushes with death multiple and I mean, multiple times, 20, 30 times in my life to where I've somehow miraculously made it out. And that's not everybody's story. So is it luck? Is it energy? Is it. I don't know what it is, man. I just know that Nip not being here no more is as tragic today as it was on the day that it happened. I hate that that happened to such a good person. And I knew him. I was part of his come up story, you know, and that was the first time in our, I think, in our lives that we seen a rapper get killed and dot lose his life on the Internet in a video that we could watch. And so that was so impactful that it was a death hurt around the world. And so that's why I think that it's important for his brother Sam and for his family and for us as friends and fans to make sure that his legacy is everlasting, man. Cause he was a super solid guy.

[Shannon Sharpe]

You said something very interesting and I asked you, I said, why can't when we make it, we go back? And you said, it's how you come back game. So you mean to tell me if I leave that neighborhood and I come back and I've made it be I'm an NBA superstar, I'm a rap star, I'm an entertainer, how have I made it? You mean to tell me I gotta come back with those same raggedy clothes, I gotta come back in the same raggedy car?

[The Game]

No, when I said it's how you come back, I mean, like, like in a week, I got a. I'm the grand marshal at a Compton parade, right? I'm going back, but I'm coming back on that type of time. And so I said, you know, Nip was an exception. Cause he put the marathon store there. He was always back giving to the neighborhood, and he was, you know, maybe a little bit more present than he should have been. Yeah. But, yeah, I think it's hal. But then again, man, sometimes, man, God has his way with all of us and we can't. I mean, I've never met a human that could question God.

[Shannon Sharpe]

Does sometimes, I think, access, you mentioned, like, he was accessible. Sometimes access breeds resentment, right?

[The Game]

Oh, no, you're 100% right.

Like I said, at that point, though, you're at the mercy of.

Negative energy and the powers that be. Because it doesn't matter. It really doesn't matter what you do in life. It. If something's gonna really happen and it's in the cards for it to happen to you. It's gonna happen. So that's why your elders in your family or people that are older than you will always tell you, like, you better pray, you know, you better give it to God and stuff like that. I think the number one thing in life is having faith, because faith will drive you into other things. And I'm not as religious as anybody else, but I will say that having faith in yourself and faith in a day and faith in your moves and making conscious will yield better results going forward in your life if you just take your time.

[Shannon Sharpe]

This concludes the first half of my conversation. Part two is also posted and you can access it to whichever podcast platform you just listened to part one on. Just simply go back to Club Shay Shay profile and I'll see you there.

[The Game]

Honestly, honestly, honestly, no one wants to think about hiv, but there are things that everyone can do to help prevent it. Things like prep. Prep stands for pre exposed or prophylaxis, and it means routinely taking prescription medicine before you're exposed to HIV to help reduce your chances of getting it. Prep can be about 99% effective when taken as prescribed. It doesn't protect against other STIs, though, so be sure to use condoms and other healthy sex practices. Ask a healthcare provider about all your prevention Options and visit findoutaboutprep.com to learn more.

[Shannon Sharpe]

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What a matchup we get.

[The Game]

Got y'. All.

[Shannon Sharpe]

This is that classic HBCU vibe. Non stop action. The band is rocking and the crowd lit. Chance echo drum beat everybody showing that school pride.

[The Game]

A game like this.

[Shannon Sharpe]

Yeah, it calls for an ice cold Coca Cola.

[The Game]

Ah, crisp and refreshing.

[Shannon Sharpe]

That's a game changer right there.

Yeah, that taste always hits the right note. Just like the bandana.

And just like that, we're back at it.

[The Game]

Passionate fans, school colors everywhere.

[Shannon Sharpe]

And an ice cold Coca Cola. That's a winning combo. No matter the sport, no matter the yard. Everybody knows fan work is thirsty work so grab a Coca Cola and keep that HBCU pride going.

[The Game]

Running a business is hard enough. Don't make it harder with a dozen.

[Matt Rogers]

Apps that don't talk to each other.

[The Game]

One for sales, another for inventory, a separate one for accounting. That's software overload. Odoo is the all in one platform that replaces them all. CRM, accounting, inventory, E Commerce, hr. Fully integrated, easy to use, and built to grow with your business. Thousands have already made the switch. Why not you try Odoo for [e-mail] that's odoo.com Running my small business was like playing basketball. Five on one and I was the one.

[Matt Rogers]

Now QuickBooks gives me a access to.

[The Game]

A team of AI agents and trusted.

[Matt Rogers]

Experts for the assists I need nothing.

[Pets Best Advertiser]

But nick outdoit with intuit. QuickBooks feature availability varies by production.